Monday, April 19, 2010

Welcome back to music videos Spike Jonze. Over the past half a decade, Jonze has only done a handful of videos, the only one of note being theKanye West'sFlashing Light, which Jonze only co-directed. Spike Jonze is one of the best, if not the best, music video director. I could go through the list of amazing music video that Jonze has won award for, but I should probably just post them. Someone remind me to a week on Spike Jonze.

This video is madness. James Murphy, the man behindLCD Soundsystem, along with the keyboardist and drummer are just trying to sing about drunk girls when a horde of grinning pandas start hazing them like a bunch of drunk frat boys. It revives memories of fourth grade bullies in the boys bathroom minus the swirlies. As the song goes on, the assault on the musicians gets more and more violent and a little unsettling. There are parts that remind me of the gang rape scenes in A Clockwork Orange.

Jonze is really successful at capturing the raw energy and the creepiness in the room and converting it to music video. There is also an eerie similarity to the latest Ok Go video, This Too Shall Pass . While this LCD Soundsystem video is not an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, it is one uncut, hand camera shot following around the mayhem and people in white suits make a mess in a big white warehouse. Also, both of these video include live sound from the video recording on top of the music track. Perhaps this is a trend we will begin to see more of.